Saturday, April 10, 2010

A Trip to Tigre

When Porteños want to get out of Buenos Aires, the closest option is the suburb of Tigre, the gateway to the Paraná delta. Barely half an hour from downtown’s Retiro station, Tigre is a riverside greenbelt city that’s the terminus of the Mitre railroad, a commuter line for the Argentine capital’s prosperous northern suburbs. It’s quick and cheap to get there - believe it or not, the fare to Tigre is 1.35 pesos, approximately 35 US cents!

My Thursday excursion, though, started from the barrio of Belgrano, whose station is closer to my ownPalermo apartment. I made a stopover at Béccar, five stops south of Tigre, to see Villa Ocampo (pictured here), the country home of writer Victoria Ocampo (1890-1979). Ocampo, born to wealth and privilege, created the literary journal Sur and entertained world-class writers, including Graham Greene, Federico García Lorca, and André Malraux here, not to mention her own countrymen such as Jorge Luis Borges and novelist Adolfo Bioy Casares (married to Ocampo’s sister Silvina, a poet).

Open to the public, now a museum and cultural center, Villa Ocampo is a Belle Epoque house built by her parents on an enormous lot that once stretched all the way to the river. Today, the grounds are much reduced - though most of us would still consider the gardens enormous - and it’s only a seven-block walk through wooded streets from the train station. It’s best, though, to time any visit for a guided tour, as self-guided visitors may only see the ground level - the first floor, where Ocampo herself slept and her distinguished guests had their own spacious rooms, is otherwise off-limits.

In Tigre, meanwhile, my primary goal was to visit the new Museo de Arte Tigre (MAT), occupying the spectacularly restored Tigre Club (pictured here, dating from 1913). Though it once housed a hotel and casino, it now displays figurative works by Argentine artists from the late 19th to the 20th century, stressing but specializing in landscapes, portraits, and still lifes linked to Tigre. The first-floor terrace that extends to the riverside offers great rivers of the river and its parkland.

Artists represented include major figures such as Antonio Berni, Benito Quinquela Martín, and Juan Carlos Castagnino, but it also holds special thematic exhibits. Currently, it’s hosting a series of three dimensional pieces by “Artistas Plásticos Solidarios en el Mes de la Memoria” (Plastic Artists in Solidarity in the Month of Memory), memorializing the victims of Argentina’s 1976 coup and subsequent “Dirty War” in conjunction the March 24th anniversary, now a holiday for reflection - and protest - in the country.

I’ve not even mentioned my favorite Tigre-area destination, the bedrockisland of Martín García, a full-day excursion reached by Cacciola catamaran from Tigre. Once a penal colony, Martín García is still a halfway house for prisoners from Buenos Aires province, but it’s also home to lush gallery forests and some unexpected architectural masterpieces - such as its rococo theater (pictured here).

First time commenting on your site, but I've enjoyed your postings for months now.

I am a doctoral student near Washington DC and will be conducting field research in Buenos Aires within the next year or two. Since my wife is a teacher, we are looking for jobs and las escuelas Lincoln in La Zona Norte (La Lucila) is a place I've looked at.

I appreciate the info on the northern suburbs as it gave me the first real glimpse of what that area looks like and what activities are there (plus the nice rail fares). Tigre and the Zone Norte usually get shorted in travel books, so this was a very helpful posting. Thanks again.

With over 30 years living and traveling in Latin America, I write guidebooks to the "Southern Cone" countries - so called because of their shape on the map - of Chile and Argentina. I'm especially interested in the remote, scenic Patagonian region overlapping the two countries. I'm sole author of Moon Handbooks to Chile & Easter Island and to Patagonia, including the Falkland Islands. I've also authored the National Geographic Traveler guide to Argentina, and DK Eyewitness Guides to Argentina and Chile.
I have a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley, and have done research in Peru, Chile, Argentina and the Falklands, where I spent a year as a Fulbright-Hays scholar.
My home base is Oakland, California, but I spend five months a year in South America. I often stay in Buenos Aires, where my Argentine wife and I have an apartment in the barrio of Palermo.
I speak fluent Spanish, less fluent German, serviceable Portuguese and desperation French.
Any questions, please contact me at southerncone (at) mac.com, or leave comments by clicking on the word "comment" at the bottom of each entry. Comments are moderated, but I get to them quickly.